About a decade ago, if you asked someone about passion fruits, they would probably be like “Hmm? What’s that?” – the intriguing tropical fruit sounded like a mysterious species to most of cold-climate habitats. Nowadays, thanks to advanced food transportation services and the curious mind of all food lovers out there, passion fruits have become more well-known and a popular ingredient in various exotic sweet recipes. True to its name “passion”, it has an enticing fragrance that is tangy, floral-y, and a lightly sweet flavor which is oh, so refreshing. Since passion fruit only grows in tropical climate, it is one of the truest representatives when it comes to summer desserts. It is best paired with mango, yogurt, or coconut; but the fragrance of passion fruit itself alone is already enough to make the whole dish shine.
Today I would like to introduce my family’s all-time favorite dessert, the No-Baked Passion Fruit Cheesecake. It’s summer time, and the “no-bake” makes it sound even better. This is a super-easy cake with the use of lady fingers as cake base, a passion fruit cheesecake layer and on top of that, a thin layer of passion fruit jelly. I used store-bought ladyfingers for the cake layer, which leaves only the cheesecake part and the jelly on top for you to make. Ladyfingers are basically sponge cake baked to crunchiness, and become soft and moist again when soaked in a reasonable amount of liquid. The cheesecake part, well, you basically can’t go wrong with cheesecake. A little bit of sweetness from the jelly, a little bit of sourness from the passion fruit cheese, and together with the softness of the lady fingers, this cake will have you do a little dance after the first bite. Sounds delightful enough? Let’s get started!
NO-BAKED PASSION FRUIT CHEESECAKE RECIPE
TOOLS
- 1 Spring-form or loose-bottom pan of 18-cm diameter or a mousse ring with similar size.
- Parchment paper
MAKE 1 cake of 18 cm in diameter and approx. 4.5 cm height
INGREDIENTS
A. Cake Base:
- 6 – 10 ladyfingers/ Savoiardi (depending on the cookie’s size)
- 70 ml milk or coconut milk to moisten the ladyfingers
B. Passion Fruit Cheese:
- 4 gram gelatin powder (1-1/4 tsp) or equal amount of gelatin sheets (about 2 sheets)
- 30 ml (2 tbsp) water (to soak the gelatin)
- 5 – 6 big passion fruits (from which I could get about 250 gram pulp with seeds)
- 50 – 60 gram (1/4 cup) caster sugar, to taste, depending on the sweetness of the fruits
- 150 gram (5.3 oz.) cream cheese, softened at room temperature
- 160 ml (2/3 cup) cold whipping cream (30 – 40% fat)
C. Passion Fruit Jelly:
- 4 gram gelatin powder (1-1/4 tsp) or equal amount of gelatin sheets (about 2 sheets)
- 30 ml (2 tbsp) water (to soak the gelatin)
- Passion fruit juice (from part B)
- 20 – 30 gram (1.5 – 2 tbsp) caster sugar
D. Decorating Cream: (optional)
- 100 ml (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) cold whipping cream (30 – 40% fat)
- 10 – 15 gram (1 tbsp) caster sugar, to taste
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- Fresh strawberries or other fruits for decoration
INSTRUCTIONS
Detailed step-by-step instructions and notes can be found in the video in Savoury Days’ YouTube Channel. You can watch below or at this link.
Don’t forget to select HD to view the video with the best definition and quality.
PRINTABLE RECIPE
A. Passion Fruit Cheese:
1. Soak the gelatin in 30 ml of water for at least 15 minutes until the gelatin is soft. If using gelatin powder, mix it with water and let it bloom. Then, microwave the gelatin for 20 – 30 seconds until it’s completely melted. Alternately, you can melt the gelatin with double-boiling method like in the video. Mix well so that gelatin completely dissolves in the water and does not stick to the bottom or side of the bowl. Keep warm.
2. Cut the passion fruit in half. Spoon out the passion fruit pulp. Transfer to a saucepan and put on medium heat. Stir constantly. Remove the pan from heat once the juice starts steaming, right before it boils.
3. Strain passion fruit juice through a strainer to get rid of seeds. Heating the juice beforehand helps us extract the juice more easily. After straining, we should get about 120 – 150 gram juice. If you get less than this amount, compensate for the difference with some lemon juice or orange juice.
When passion fruit juice is still warm, transfer 75 gram to another bowl. Add gelatin (prepared in step 2) and about 20 gram sugar into this bowl and stir to incorporate. Add sugar to taste if necessary, the flavor should be balanced between sweet and sour. Let cool.
Reserve the remaining passion fruit juice for the jelly layer.
*Note: This is important before moving on to step 4. Some feedback that I received says that the mixture might curdle when the passion fruit juice is added to the cream cheese mixture in step (4). The reason might be that your juice is too concentrated due to being overcooked in this step. When added to the cream cheese, the acid in passion fruit causes the dairy to precipitate.
To avoid this, be careful not to boil the juice. Other than that, you can take only 50 gram juice (instead of 75 gram) and add some water to thin out the juice.
4. In a bowl, add in cream cheese (softened at room temperature) and 30 gram sugar. At the lowest speed, beat for 1 to 1.5 minutes until the mixture is well-blended. Add in whipping cream and beat until it forms soft peaks and streaks can be observed when moving the whisks around (refer to video for visual details). Now, add in the cooled passion fruit juice, fold or beat at the lowest speed until the mixture is incorporated.
*Note:
- Only whip cream cheese and cream until soft peak. When mixing it with passion fruit juice, also whisk the mixture just enough for everything to combine. Otherwise, the cream might become grainy.
- Adjust the final cream cheese mixture to taste. If it’s not sweet enough, add some honey or sugar syrup. If you don’t have either, use powdered sugar because granulated sugar might not be able to fully dissolve.
- If you don’t have a handmixer, you can use a wire whisk to whip the cream, but it would take you much more time and sweat.
5. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper so that it is easier to move the cake from pan to plate later on.
6. Scrape off sugar from the ladyfingers. Quickly dip both sides of each ladyfinger into milk or coconut milk (do not dip the whole cookies into liquid because they would become mushy). Line the entire pan bottom with ladyfingers.
7. Pour the cream cheese mixture on top. Smooth out the surface, keep refrigerated for at least 2 hours until the cake sets.
B. Passion Fruit Jelly:
1. Soak gelatin in water and melt it the same way we did in part A.
2. Transfer the remaining passion fruit to a bowl, add water or orange juice to get about 100 ml juice total. Add melted gelatin. Add sugar to taste (I used about 20 gram).
Stir to dissolve sugar and all the ingredients are well combined. Gently pour this mixture on top of the cream cheese in the pan. Note that the orange passion fruit juice should not be too warm or it may ruin the cheesecake layer. Chill for another 2 – 4 hours. Serve cold for up to 2 days.
3. If you’d like to decorate the cake, whip cream with sugar and vanilla extract. If you have leftover cream cheese, you can substitute 50 ml cream with 50 gram cream cheese and whip them all together. This cream cheese frosting tastes amazing and pipes beautifully as well.
* Note:
- The cream used for frosting should include at least 35% fat. As soon as the cream becomes dense and billowy, switch to lowest speed or a wire whisk to avoid over-whipping. Stop right when the cream forms a peak as you lift the whisk up.
- If you want to use cream cheese for the frosting, whisk it well with sugar first before adding cream (like in part A). The frosting reaches stiff peak very fast if it has cream cheese, so be careful and whip at low speed to avoid over-whipping.
I’d recommend preparing this frosting 1 – 2 hours before using. After whipping, keep the frosting in the refrigerator so that it gets denser and pipes better. I didn’t do this, so as you can see in the video, my frosting was a bit runny.
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- Recipe & Photos: Linh Trang
- Written & Edited by: San Luong and Holly Le
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